I’m not going to lie: I love chocolate.

When you live in chocolate-obsessed Belgium, it’s hard not to. The average person here consumes eight kilograms (17.6 pounds) of the stuff a year.

But I also have serious concerns about the chocolate industry – concerns that are only heightened with the publication of a new report from the Belgian university of Louvain.

The new research describes how some 2.5 million hectares (9,650 square miles) of tropical forest in Côte d’Ivoire were destroyed for cocoa plantations between 2000 and 2019. That’s an area about the size of the US state of Vermont – or about five sixths of Belgium.

What’s worse, the report shows that nearly half of this deforestation was the result of unregulated cocoa production.

Côte d’Ivoire is the world’s largest producer of cacao, the seeds (not technically beans) from which cocoa and chocolate are made. The country accounts for more than 40 percent of the world’s harvest, and half of EU imports come from Côte d’Ivoire.

Clearing forests for cocoa production has worldwide impacts.

As we discussed here a few days ago, deforestation is the second largest source of greenhouse gas emissions causing climate change, and industrial agriculture is the most significant driver of deforestation globally. Chocolate, coffee, palm oil in soap… they are all major contributors.

And of course, deforestation is not the only troubling issue with the cocoa industry. There are concerns over child labor and even child trafficking in both Côte d’Ivoire and Ghana. Also, most cocoa is produced by small-scale farmers who receive only a fraction of the profits from crop sales.

So, from a human rights perspective, what’s a chocolate lover like me to do?

Can I eat chocolate without guilt? Should I try to avoid it? Or are personal decisions too small-scale to really tackle these huge issues?

How will a new EU law banning cocoa imports linked to deforestation and labor rights abuses help address these issues?

These are the questions I’ll be putting to experts, including the author of the new Belgian report, in a Twitter Space audio discussion on May 10. Please, join us!

And if you have questions you’d like me to put to the experts, please send them to me by email, or contact me on Twitter or Mastodon.

French authorities have launched a massive police operation in Mayotte this week. They deployed some 1,800 French police and gendarmes to demolish informal settlements and expel large numbers of undocumented migrants.

The Indian Ocean archipelago of Mayotte is a département of France. This means it technically has the same status as the départements of better-known French regions like the Loire, Savoy, or Paris.

And it means the people living there theoretically have the same rights protected by law as anyone living anywhere else in France. Some legal exceptions are in force there, however, so the realité on the ground often doesn’t match up.

Destruction of slums and summary expulsions of undocumented migrants in Mayotte are not new, nor are such actions unique to the islands. See how French authorities have treated migrants in Calais, for example.

But the magnitude of the new police operation is unprecedented for Mayotte.

The government is presenting the operation as an effort to combat crime and improve public health, as well as tackle irregular migration.

There’s no question France has work to do in Mayotte. It’s the country’s poorest département, with nearly 80 percent of people living in poverty. School enrollment and completion rates are abysmal.

But how exactly will destroying people’s homes and separating families through expulsions address these issues?

They won’t. They will simply add fear to the list of people’s problems.

Uzbekistan’s constitutional referendum this weekend may not exactly be at the top of your news feed, but it is a critical moment for the Central Asian country.

Uzbek officials claim the new constitution will usher in a “New Uzbekistan,” and to be fair, some parts of the text look positive, at least on paper.

It would guarantee equal rights for men and women. It would give citizens the right to appeal to the constitutional court. And it would prohibit the death penalty.

However, the new constitution would also extend the Uzbek president’s term in office from 5 to 7 years, and would enable the current president, Shavkat Mirziyoyev, to run for two more terms in office.

And any “New Uzbekistan” on paper would still need to address the same long list of serious human rights concerns in the reality of old Uzbekistan, like restrictions on freedom of expression, freedom of assembly, and freedom of association.

(compiled by Lisa Maier)

• Thailand: Free girl detained for “defaming monarchy” (HRW) 
• EU fixing to leave Bangui, as Russian influence grows (EUobserver) 
• Hundreds of people on the move stranded at Peru-Chile border (El País) 
• UN: Taliban must ‘swiftly reverse’ crackdown on women’s rights (Al Jazeera) 

The Human Rights Watch Film Festival is back, now in its 34th year.

This time around we’ll be presenting ten groundbreaking new films, as well as in-depth discussions featuring filmmakers, journalists, activists, and Human Rights Watch researchers.

The Opening Night film, Seven Winters in Tehran, is a haunting documentary about Reyhaneh Jabbari, a 19-year-old Iranian woman sentenced to death for killing the man who tried to rape her.

The film festival is in New York, but if you’re in the US, you can also watch online. More details here.

One week of human rights news, 5 simple questions…

Or maybe not so simple?